Denny Hamlin, who has racked up 58 victories over 706 NASCAR Cup Series starts, is without a doubt a future NASCAR Hall of Famer. However, aside from a Bill France Cup, the trophy awarded to the NASCAR Cup Series champion each season, all that Hamlin’s trophy case is missing is a Brickyard 400 PPG Trophy.
Starting Lineup: NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400
The 44-year-old has tried 16 times to collect the final crown jewel he needs to cap off a career sweep of the four crown jewel events (Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400, and Southern 500) in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The legendary racer has three prior wins in the Daytona 500 (2016, 2019, and 2020), three wins in the Southern 500 (2010, 2017, and 2021), and one win in the Coca-Cola 600 (2022). A win at Indianapolis would put him alongside Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, and Kevin Harvick, who are the only drivers to date to pull off the career grand slam in NASCAR.
Hamlin comes into this weekend’s race as the winningest driver in the NASCAR Cup Series this season as he collected his fourth win last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, but if he is going to collect his first win at the famed 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, Hamlin is going to have to overcome a lot of adversity after he suffered a hard crash during his qualifying run on Saturday.
The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Progressive Toyota Camry XSE was on pace to collect the pole position for Sunday’s race when he got tight on the exit of Turn 2, collided with the outside wall, and spun.
“Just the last, one second there. I saw that other guys had issues there, and the wind picked up, which made for a pretty tight condition off of Turn 2,” said Hamlin after his incident. “So, if you’re not pointed correctly, it’s not going to turn, and I wasn’t pointed correctly.”
The spin would come to an end with Hamlin suffering a hard head-first collision with the SAFER Barrier positioned in front of the inside wall.
There's trouble for @dennyhamlin on his qualifying lap! pic.twitter.com/mhYh8tzWLL
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 26, 2025
The damage was severe enough that Joe Gibbs Racing chose to move to a backup car for Hamlin for Sunday’s race.
Unlike the days of old, NASCAR Cup Series teams aren’t allowed to bring full-fledged race-ready backup cars to the race track anymore. Instead, blank backup cars are brought, which serve as the backup car for multiple cars within each team every weekend. As a result, Joe Gibbs Racing had to have all hands on deck to get the No. 11 car re-prepared for Sunday’s Brickyard 400.
Hamlin will now have to roll from the 39th and final starting spot in the field. It will be a historic day for Hamlin to nab his first win in the Brickyard 400, as the furthest any winner has come from in Brickyard 400 history was the 27th starting spot, which was achieved by Jeff Gordon in 2001.
Historically, the Brickyard 400 is a race with track position as a major area of importance. Hamlin says he’ll simply do the best he can to finish as well as he can after his disastrous Saturday at Indianapolis.
“I’ll just have to do the best that I can,” Hamlin added. “There’s nothing I can do to change the outcome for tomorrow, just give it the best I can, try to get all the points I can. The stage points will probably be a near impossibility from where we’re starting, we just got to try to get the best finish we can.”
It’s been a magical season for Hamlin, who was paired with new crew chief Chris Gayle heading into the year. If he and Gayle can pull off a run from 39th to 1st in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, it’ll likely take a special mixture of strategy by Gayle and driving by Hamlin and pitwork by the No. 11 pit crew to make it happen.
The Brickyard 400 is set for Sunday, July 27, and will be televised on TNT. The official race broadcast will kick off at 2:00 PM ET. The IMS Radio Network and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
